Hello! It’s me! I do try not to be a problem, but sometimes it’s me. (If you know who Taylor Swift is, you might find that funny. But maybe not)

Here I am and it’s been a very long time since I chatted at you. I’ve missed you all, but life has been big over here. Huge! It was almost a year ago that I told you my father in law had gone to be with Jesus. Time flies. Since then, Goodness me. My dear dad used to tell me I shouldn’t say “goodness me” because there really isn’t much goodness in any of us. He wasn’t wrong, but in this World where exclamations have turned into haircurlingeyewateringcringeworthy things that make one shudder, I’m choosing Goodness Me. Our almost five year old was exclaiming about something the other day, which he does tend to do. (Not sure where in the world he gets that from. Eye roll) and I suggested that perhaps a good option for a word might be just plain GOODNESS!

Now that the preamble is done, I will try to catch you up and maybe afterwards, just perhaps, you might say to yourself, “self, I can do This. This happens to be the worst. Well, it certainly is hard. But I will manage it.” Maybe you will read a bit further while I tell you how I manage and how my dear ones manage the things.

First of all, we are adding to our family. Well not really We. Stephen Mark Staley has found himself a girl he wants to spend his life with. She has already joined our family, but the real event will take place this fall. September. We have welcomed Tatiana and she will be part of us. As we do life with her, my prayer is that she will see Jesus. That the person He is, will be evident in us.

I need to catch you up on a couple of items of importance and maybe I should, in an effort to be precise, put it all in bullet form. That isn’t my style. I like to explain and here’s a tidbit. I am triggered (and aren’t I a modern woman, using such woke language) when in the middle of explaining something that you should know, but more importantly, I Need to tell, you, the recipient of my explanation has the gall, the nerve, the audacity to say “you don’t need to explain”. SAY WHAT? You my friend, are missing the point! This is not about You. This is about Me and I most certainly Do need to explain. Goodness ME. Sit down and listen to what I’m telling you.

So

Here’s what I have to say.

November 2020 I wrote Family Ties. I told you some things about my family of origin and specifically my brother. He is older than me and you can reread the story for a refresher. I told you then, that Rod had learned he had cancer. I was far away. Provinces away. Stupid COVID was running rampant and the maybe not so wise people managing it told me I had to stay in my house. I watched my brother fight that thing and several times, live very close to the edge of this life and eternity with Jesus. Now let me interject here, that eternity with Jesus is not something we are afraid of. It’s just that, despite the depravity and awful of this Earth, there is much that is sweet. We grumble and complain. I do. We want what we don’t have and wish for better. But there is good and happy and Love and laughter and we like it here. So Rod literally lived on the edge, for months and then, the end came. The end of treatment and feeling sick and quarantine and pain and loneliness and God told him to get up, pick up his life and carry on. He did. He is, carrying on. He’s the guy you want for a neighbour. I wish he was mine. He notices if you need help and he’s the fellow who marches to the church and tells the people that they need to do something about the property, the investment, the place where family gathers. He tells them he’s their guy, to make sure a team gets collected and to oversea the necessary yard work. Rod doesn’t sit around and grumble about stuff if he can manage to get it done. We Houses tend to be that way. We jump in. Sometimes the jumping isn’t the best. Sometimes we and others would be better served if we just sat quietly. But in most cases, we don’t really wonder about what might be better. We Just Do It. Rod is a tender heart. Much more tender than me and Much Much more tender than our little Big sister. She is Mrs. Get ‘er done her very self. Whooeee! But more about her later. Rod is alive and doing well and God, yes we always credit God with good things, has given him more days, to live. You know that God is Good, right?

My sister almost died. My sister. The stalwart. Our person. Now, because she will be the first person to read this and just so she doesn’t get all puffed up peacock style and get even bossier than is probable, she is Not perfect. Sometimes I want to speak sternly to her because I don’t one bit like her view. But still. In November, in Arizona, she was minding her own business, crossing the very busy road, at the crosswalk, at the green light, when somebody and we will never know the specifics, ran her down. God was there. We would have preferred she not be hit at all, but we try our best not to ask Why? It happened and I’ll tell you that a few inches this way or that and, well, we won’t talk about that. She was rushed to the hospital and her only recollection of the whole dreadful affair is that she woke up, in the ambulance, to the paramedics cutting off her very favourite lululemon pants. Cracked pelvis, bruised up face, wrecked shoulder and nothing else broken. God was there. He is always there and this time He saved that girls life. I told Him Thank You. I told Him He knew I just really could not manage if He took her. I told Him that as much as I know He works all of the things out, for our good and His glory and although He said if we trust in Him and don’t try to figure stuff out on our own, He will direct the whole shebang, Thank You. Thank you for being merciful that day. Thanks for being merciful every. Single. Day. If the two that are blood with me, the sister and brother, along with myself, sat down and made a list of the mercy we have seen from Him in all of these years, it would be long. Super duper long. We have each lived with sad hard things. Yes, I know. you have too. But let me tell you that my hard things were manageable only because of Jesus. He is alive and well and how do I know? Because He lives in me. Somebody said something Really nice to me a few days ago. I mean, it was the kind of nice that made me sit up straighter and think, hmm, isn’t that nice. A kind thing to say. Sometimes in a moment, I forget what to speak. I just sort of stumble over the words. I say something and after, when I’m heading one way and the person with the nice words heads the other, I wish my response had been better, different, more right. But here’s the thing and this is what I would want you, everybody to know.

I am so broken, it is shocking that I am walking around capable of accomplishing things. Any Things. Oh it’s nobody’s fault. There’s no blame. Goodness Me. But the cracks in my soul are wide and many. The good news is this. Jesus is in me and with me. Because the Spirit of God teaches me and will never ever leave me to my own sordid, self indulgent, nonsensical way, the cracks that shockingly, have not caused me to fall to pieces, are only relevant in that they remind me of how Good God Is. As my dear dad said, about using the phrase “My goodness”

The only goodness in me, is Him. He is Jesus. He is literally the Saviour. My brother’s, my sister’s and most assuredly mine.